The Education Gadfly Weekly

Committee for Economic Development
February, 2004

This report by the Committee for Economic Development offers a number of worthwhile recommendations to improve education. They're centered on dollars and cents, and they're not particularly novel, perhaps because these are sensible ideas that reform-minded groups have been suggesting for years. What this report does well is present a concise yet reasoned case for each recommendation. Its authors argue that decision-making authority should be decentralized, that teacher salaries should be properly acknowledged in school budgets, that teacher pay scales should be eliminated, that salaries be based (at least in part) on how much one's students learn, and that alternative models (like charter schools) should be supported. We agree. CED tackles these issues from a business perspective and no doubt some in education will respond that "schools aren't businesses" or "what works in the boardroom doesn't necessarily work in the classroom." However, anyone prone to such a knee-jerk reaction should note that this report also addresses this concern. CED does not say that models from corporate America can simply be applied to schools but that education leaders can glean valuable lessons from business that need to be tailored to fit schools' needs. Sure, education is different, but not so different that it need defy common sense and a wealth of evidence about what works in other sectors. You can find this report online at http://www.ced.org/projects/educ.shtml, where it's free to download or  you can pay $15 for a hard copy.

J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel McCaffrey
R Foundation for Statistical Computing
December 2003

Interested in value-added models for gauging student achievement? Ready to digest something highly technical? J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel F. McCaffrey have a challenging treat for you, a 7-page article in R News (published by the R Foundation for Statistical Computing) that explains, Doran says, how "all of the most common value added models...can be fit using a particular software package called R." The models "range from the most simple to the most complex, the [Tennessee value-added] system. . . . This article differs from others in that 'it shows how to' rather than describing what they are 'in theory' or what benefits they present." I'm not competent to validate (or refute) this assertion but perhaps you or a colleague can meet that challenge. Given the widespread view (everywhere except in the No Child Left Behind act) that value-added analyses are the fairest way to gauge student progress and school (and teacher) effectiveness, all contributions to their development are welcome. Find this one at http://cran.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/Rnews_2003-3.pdf.

Bryan C. Hassel and Meagan Batdorff, Public Impact
February 2004

When the pressure is on, do charter authorizers make the right decisions about the fate of charter schools? The latest Public Impact study, written by Bryan Hassel and Meaghan Batdorff, says yes, most of the time, though not always for the right reasons or as a result of sound procedures. Out of  50 cases studied involving high-stakes sponsor life/death decisions about charter schools, only one shows an authorizer failing to close a school despite evidence of underperformance. Since authorizers have only recently come into the spotlight as a key component of the success or failure of charter schools, scant attention has been paid to how they make their decisions. Hassel and Batdorff's research confirms that many authorizers' activities lack transparency. Even when researchers could find details on decision-making, in many instances they found no measurable merit-based systems in place to help them make informed decisions. What should be done? The authors say that authorizers should design dependable systems that measure progress, protect the decision making process from political pressure, and most important, make their own workings transparent. To access the report for yourself, surf to www.publicimpact.com/highstakes.

"The Charter School Debate", Brookings Institution, February 18, 2004

Much like the "reading wars" between phonics instruction and whole language learning, the K-12 "math wars" have raged for more than a decade. With many defeats and only occasional victories, parents, education reformers, and a number of university mathematicians have struggled against "fuzzy math" in schools. Now President Bush is proposing a bold plan to improve mathematics education, but some members of the House-even some members of his own party-are resisting.

The Problem

"Fuzzy math," a philosophical sibling of whole language learning, refers to textbooks and school programs that intentionally de-emphasize basic arithmetic and algebra skills. At the elementary school level, these programs encourage students to invent their own arithmetic procedures, while discouraging the use of the traditional and far superior methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Calculator use is encouraged to excess-in some cases, they're even included in kindergarten lesson plans, at precisely the age that students should be learning basic computational skills unaided. Student "discovery group work" is the preferred mode of learning, sometimes the only mode, and the discovery projects are almost invariably incoherent and aimless. Some of the elementary school fuzzy math programs do not even provide textbooks for students, as books might interfere with student discovery projects. Arithmetic and algebra are radically de-emphasized by these programs. In the higher grades, mathematical definitions and proofs are generally deficient, missing entirely, or even incorrect.

The principal funding source of fuzzy math for the past decade has been the federal government by way of the Education and Human Resources (EHR) division of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The EHR is the directorate within the NSF that funds K-12 education projects. No single institution in the United States has caused more damage to the mathematical education of children than this low-profile bureaucratic unit of the National Science Foundation. The damage that the EHR has caused, and continues to cause, contrasts sharply with the NSF's overall admirable and important role in supporting fundamental scientific research.

For example, in October 1999, the U.S. Department of Education released a list of 10 so-called "exemplary" and "promising" math programs that it recommended for the nation's 15,000 school districts. More than half of these "exemplary" and "promising" math programs were created with EHR funding, and the rest were and are aggressively promoted by the EHR. On the list were some of the worst math education programs in the country. For example, one of the "promising" curriculum called Everyday Mathematics calls calculators are "an integral part of Kindergarten Everyday Mathematics" and urges the use of technological aids to teach kindergarten students how to count. There are no textbooks in this K-6 curriculum-a serious shortcoming. The program assigns the standard algorithm for multiplying two numbers no more status or prominence than an Ancient Egyptian algorithm presented in one of the teacher's manuals. Students are never required to use the standard long division algorithm in this curriculum, or even the standard algorithm for multiplication.

A month after the list was released, I faxed an open letter to the Department of Education that was signed by more than 200 mathematicians and scholars. Our open letter urged withdrawal of the entire list of "exemplary" and "promising" mathematics programs and it asked for that withdrawal to be announced publicly. Among the endorsers of the open letter are many of the nation's most accomplished scientists and mathematicians. Department heads at many universities, including Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, as well as two former presidents of the Mathematical Association of America added their names in support. Seven Nobel laureates and winners of the Fields Medal, the highest international award in mathematics, also endorsed. The open letter was published as a full-page ad in the Washington Post thanks to the generosity of the Packard Humanities Institute.

Unfortunately, the pleas of mathematicians, scientists, and parents of school children have been ignored by the EHR with predictable consequences. The EHR-funded fuzzy math programs cause problems for all school children, but they are particularly harmful to children with limited resources. Upper middle class parents can afford tutoring to compensate for what EHR has done to their schools and their children. Sadly, lower income children typically do not have that option, and they must directly bear the brunt of these defective programs. The EHR steadfastly continues to fund vacuous-even damaging-math programs through its Math and Science Partnerships (MSP) program. In the past five years, the EHR has poured $1 billion into this damaging program.

A Solution

President Bush's science budget for 2005 would transfer the MSP program and its funding out of EHR to the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The administration's proposal deserves support. It is crucial that this program be loosened from the grip of EHR.

Indeed, the best option would be to close down EHR entirely (it has a poor track record on multiple fronts, including its support for dubious reading and science programs) and perhaps shift its monies to state education agencies, which are at least more responsive to parent criticism of incompetent school programs. While significant questions remain as to how the MSP grants would be administered at the Department of Education-for example, would they still be competitive or apportioned among states according to a formula?-the administration's proposal is clearly a step in the right direction.

Resistance

Unfortunately, members of a key congressional committee, the House Science Committee, are opposed to the move. At least some of their reluctance likely arises from old-fashioned turf-protection, as the shift would also move oversight of the program to the House Education Committee. Science Committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), criticized Bush's proposal in a February 2 statement (www.house.gov/science/press/108/108-181.htm):

While we are still reviewing the specific budgets of individual agencies, some glaringly bad decisions already stand out. Primary among them is the proposal to move the Math and Science Partnerships from the National Science Foundation to the Department of Education. We will fight that decision tooth-and-nail.

This may seem like an arcane battle over budgets, bureaucracies, and power. But it actually has tremendous consequences for the education of America's school children. Decreasing the EHR budget decreases its ability to cause harm. Parents, mathematicians, and the White House can only hope that Congress will take a closer look at an agency that undermines the mathematical education of America's school children.

David Klein is a professor of mathematics at California State University, Northridge, and author of "A Brief History of American K-12 Math Education in the 20th Century," available at http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html, from which portions of this article are taken. To read a presentation given to the American Enterprise Institute on the NSF's role in K-12 mathematics education, see http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/aei.htm.

How would Shakespeare do on the new writing section of the SAT? None too well, according to this article in the Atlantic, which scored several well-known writers against the writing criteria set by the College Board, which sponsors America's most prominent test. Jacques's famous speech from the Bard's As You Like It scored only 2 out of 6, marked down for poor organization, bad grammar, and vague generalizations. A Hemingway essay on writing ("It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him") did a little better - 3 out of 6. And Gertrude Stein's stream-of-consciousness masterpiece Cezanne scores a paltry 1. The best essay by far? Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's thoughts on socialization, published in several prominent newspapers just before his capture in 1996. It must, however, be noted that the authors of this analysis are officers of the famously test-wary Princeton Review.

"Would Shakespeare get into Swarthmore?" by John Katzman, Andy Lutz, and Erik Olson, The Atlantic, March 2004

The Department of Education is entertaining comments on an important proposed change to Title IX regulations that presently impede single-sex schools. The proposed amendment, which springs from a little-noticed section of the No Child Left Behind act that was inspired by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), would allow states and Uncle Sam to fund single-sex education so long as "comparable" educational opportunities are available to students of the opposite sex. (The current regs say that the alternative offerings must be "substantially equal".) Said Education Secretary Rod Paige, "This regulation is designed to provide educators and parents with a wider range of diverse education options in public as well as private schools that receive federal aid to meet the needs and interests of students." A reasonable and long-overdue change, we judge. Better still is the provision allowing districts to support single-sex charter schools without requiring a complementary charter school for students of the opposite sex. Both girls and boys stand to benefit and nowhere more than in urban America and its minority communities. Moreover, as long as these are schools of choice, nobody will be forced to attend a single-sex school except by his/her own parents! The Department is taking comments at [email protected].

"Department to provide more educational options for parents," press release, March 3, 2004

"One-sex schools can be an option," by George Archibald, Washington Times, March 4, 2004

In Colorado, a bill to create an independent state board to authorize charter schools is facing legislative obstacles. The Democrat who sponsored it says it would help charter schools by providing state, rather than local district, oversight. (It's also a central recommendation of Fordham's Charter School Authorizing: Are States Making the Grade? at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=67.) But opponents - other Democrats, the teachers union, etc. - claim it will ransack district education budgets by diverting funds to charter schools. In other words, it'll lead to more charter schools! Colorado has long had a lively charter movement, including an appeal process whereby the State Board of Education can reverse charter-averse district decisions, but it's never had an actual authorizer other than local school boards and many of them are loath to encourage or help these independent public schools. A second measure before the legislature would empower the State Board to sponsor those "appealed" schools itself rather than remanding the job to hostile districts. Each measure would brighten the Colorado charter scene. The combination would be potent indeed.

"Teachers, districts oppose charter school institute," Associated Press, March 1, 2004

Many educators believe it doesn't matter what kids read, so long as they are reading something. We beg to differ. Despite the good intentions of policymakers and teachers who want to improve students' reading skills, especially low-income and minority children, merely spending more time on "reading skills," does not a better reader make. Thus arises the paradoxical situation in which, as a result of NCLB, "localities have mandated that schools devote large chunks of time to reading in early grades" yet "test scores have risen only modestly or not at all, and the reading gap remains large." That's the observation of famed education thinker E.D. Hirsch (a winner of the 2003 Fordham Prize), who explains that the reason is "we expand time spent on reading but don't examine what is being read. Most of the precious hours spent on reading should be devoted to history, science, literature and art, not bland stories about 'Jose at the supermarket,' or 'Janice and her new friend'." In other words, merely practicing reading skills or spending more time on reading passages is not enough. Students must be reading things that help supply them with the background knowledge they will need to make sense of a wide variety of advanced texts.

"Many Americans can read but can't comprehend," by E.D. Hirsch, USA Today, February 24, 2004

Bryan C. Hassel and Meagan Batdorff, Public Impact
February 2004

When the pressure is on, do charter authorizers make the right decisions about the fate of charter schools? The latest Public Impact study, written by Bryan Hassel and Meaghan Batdorff, says yes, most of the time, though not always for the right reasons or as a result of sound procedures. Out of  50 cases studied involving high-stakes sponsor life/death decisions about charter schools, only one shows an authorizer failing to close a school despite evidence of underperformance. Since authorizers have only recently come into the spotlight as a key component of the success or failure of charter schools, scant attention has been paid to how they make their decisions. Hassel and Batdorff's research confirms that many authorizers' activities lack transparency. Even when researchers could find details on decision-making, in many instances they found no measurable merit-based systems in place to help them make informed decisions. What should be done? The authors say that authorizers should design dependable systems that measure progress, protect the decision making process from political pressure, and most important, make their own workings transparent. To access the report for yourself, surf to www.publicimpact.com/highstakes.

"The Charter School Debate", Brookings Institution, February 18, 2004

Committee for Economic Development
February, 2004

This report by the Committee for Economic Development offers a number of worthwhile recommendations to improve education. They're centered on dollars and cents, and they're not particularly novel, perhaps because these are sensible ideas that reform-minded groups have been suggesting for years. What this report does well is present a concise yet reasoned case for each recommendation. Its authors argue that decision-making authority should be decentralized, that teacher salaries should be properly acknowledged in school budgets, that teacher pay scales should be eliminated, that salaries be based (at least in part) on how much one's students learn, and that alternative models (like charter schools) should be supported. We agree. CED tackles these issues from a business perspective and no doubt some in education will respond that "schools aren't businesses" or "what works in the boardroom doesn't necessarily work in the classroom." However, anyone prone to such a knee-jerk reaction should note that this report also addresses this concern. CED does not say that models from corporate America can simply be applied to schools but that education leaders can glean valuable lessons from business that need to be tailored to fit schools' needs. Sure, education is different, but not so different that it need defy common sense and a wealth of evidence about what works in other sectors. You can find this report online at http://www.ced.org/projects/educ.shtml, where it's free to download or  you can pay $15 for a hard copy.

J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel McCaffrey
R Foundation for Statistical Computing
December 2003

Interested in value-added models for gauging student achievement? Ready to digest something highly technical? J.R. Lockwood, Harold Doran, and Daniel F. McCaffrey have a challenging treat for you, a 7-page article in R News (published by the R Foundation for Statistical Computing) that explains, Doran says, how "all of the most common value added models...can be fit using a particular software package called R." The models "range from the most simple to the most complex, the [Tennessee value-added] system. . . . This article differs from others in that 'it shows how to' rather than describing what they are 'in theory' or what benefits they present." I'm not competent to validate (or refute) this assertion but perhaps you or a colleague can meet that challenge. Given the widespread view (everywhere except in the No Child Left Behind act) that value-added analyses are the fairest way to gauge student progress and school (and teacher) effectiveness, all contributions to their development are welcome. Find this one at http://cran.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/Rnews_2003-3.pdf.